Pen Pals 4 Life.

I’ve always been into having pen pals. At different times in my life I’ve written letters more or less frequently depending on if I knew anyone outside of Winnipeg and later on if I “had any spare time” (read: wasn’t all over the internet or tv). 

When I was six, my church had a “secret pen pal” thing where members of the congregation were paired with members of the Sunday school and wrote back and forth with code names for a couple months. Then we had a party and got to meet each other and eat dainties. My code name was Snow White and my pen pal’s was Swan. Turns out “Swan” was this woman Jean whose code name was actually her spy name during WWII. While I don’t really keep in touch with Jean, we often ask after each other through my parents and I still run into her on holidays when I make it to church. Sometimes I even see her on the street. She happens to live in the apartments beside my boyfriend’s place and I often think of popping in. 

In elementary school, I signed up for this international pen pal program that my mom turned me on to. You sent in your information and preferences for country and gender and then eventually you just started getting mail. I secretly chose boys for my preference and didn’t tell anyone. I had a girl from Italy and a few others but my favourite was this boy from Greece. His dad was a truck driver and he sent me multiple drawing of big rigs but only one photo. In it, he was roasting a whole pig rotisserie style. I saw a lot of potential for this pen pal thing to turn into an international romance. “I know we’ve never met – but I love you” I pictured him writing “come visit me by the sea!” As it turns out, that’s pretty much exactly how it went. It lost its charm pretty quickly though, because we were 12.

When I was a teenager and hardcore was 60% the internet, I had some pen pals too. Friends like Sarde and Davey in Saskatchewan that I could write one liner post cards too. That was fun, even though it took me a while to hang out with either of them when they both eventually made their way Winnipeg.

Now that I live in another city, I’ve been more interested in keeping up with it. I think I’ve done alright but there’s always guilt on both ends about not writing enough. Lately I’ve tried to get creative in my spare time. I don’t have tv but I buy VHS tapes from the Wee Book Inn down the street and I spend a lot of evenings watching these and making some postcards. As a result, they all remind me a little of Stallone and John Candy. I worked on this "Hey Mami" set for a while. There are fifteen but I gave two to my friend Jen for her birthday. I’ll be sending these out pronto to those who have written me so far and other friends that should write – as a means of encouragement and guilt. I’ll even number them so it feels like they’re for collecting.

Thats it cool guy.